This article analyses the practices and guiding ideas of the Global Barter Network in Uruguay as well as in Argentina. The historical background of the Network, how it operates, the reasons that led people to join, the results achieved and the challenges ahead are discussed. This particular experience is then related to the ideas put forward by Post Development theoreticians and the implications for mainstream development discourse are highlighted. The conclusions open a debate with respect to new trends in the development discourse which in actual fact move away from it and offer alternatives of a novel character.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to developing countries is how to create a more equitable society and, in so doing, to improve living conditions and create opportunities for advancement for all its citizens. Poverty alleviation programmes which do not include full community participation and their responsible involvement are doomed to fail. However, poverty alleviation has another, far broader dimension - namely giving all the people the right education and thereby increasing opportunities for economic and social advancement. A good education does not entail only what is done in the classroom. Schools which are badly run will sooner or later have maladministration reflected in poor pass rates and other major problems. The article on total quality management in education aptly addresses this issue with specific reference to rural Peru.

A previous article in the most recent issue of this journal (ULAR 16 (2) 2000) introduced the subject of vegetalismo. In this article the author considers the concept as it relates to states of consciousness and the so-called new sciences, new physics, conservation and ethnobotany. He goes on to explain, however, that although there have been developments in vegetalismo such as the establishment of the ethnobotanical garden of Sachamama, the prospects for its development have become slim. Despite their roles the vegetalistas are financially poorly rewarded and in modern society well-paid work has priority. Thus, the opportunity costs of lengthy training at the expense of regular education will soon cause vegetalistas to dwindle away. Nonetheless he sees useful lessons to be learnt by South Africa from their employment as supplementary medical assistants for the rural poor and he advocates the employment of sangomas in the same way.

The principal idea behind total quality management is that customers and their nterests should come first. Statistical techniques to achieve continuous improvements are the methodological core of quality approach.

It has become commonplace to regard the modern economy as being, more than ever before, dependent on knowledge. '[I]n modern economies knowledge plays a crucial role in the economic process ("knowledge economies'')' (Anlló 2001:1). 'Economic competitiveness is ever more linked to rapid technological changes and increasing numbers of firms are centring their business on the development of new knowledge-based technology offerings (products and services). The strategic management of knowledge-based technology assets has therefore become crucial in gaining competitive advantage' (Verhaeghe-Colegrin and Kfir 2001:1).

An IDB-supported fund based in Bolivia is financing projects in Brazil and Peru that will contribute to local development while reinforcing the cultural identity of indigenous communities. The projects, one in education and the other in agriculture, are being financed by the Bolivia-based Indigenous People's Fund with the help of a $295,000 contribution from the French government.

During October and November 2000, thirty-six students of the Executive National Security Programme (ENSP) which is conducted by the South African Defence College, visited Argentina in order to introduce the course to the way another country approaches national security.

For the first time in its fifty years of existence this influential body of academics from around the world met on African soil, as guests of the University of South Africa (Unisa). Organized by Professor Ina Gräbe of Unisa's Department of Theory of Literature, the main sessions of the ICLA Congress took place at the newly refurbished Conference Centre on Unisa's Sunnyside campus in Pretoria. Some 500 literary scholars participated in a programme divided into seven Main Sections, with their many parallel sessions, twelve Workshops and six Round Tables.

Durval De Noronha on the WTO's threats to developing countries at the centre
UNISA and Angola's Agostinho Neto University (UAN) forge a working future
Peru's participation in the world schools debating championships

In recent years, scholars have offered many explanations for Guatemala's four decades of civil war - a war that unleashed some of the most violent and repressive campaigns in Latin American history. Many of these studies look back to the nineteenth century and identify distinct divisions that arose between Indians and Ladinos (non-Indians) during that important period of nation building. Tending either to chronicle the ways in which the liberal Ladino state exploited peasants and workers to build an export-oriented economy or to describe the ways in which Indians resisted this process of modernization, these accounts often cast Ladinos as villains and Indians as victims. But Greg Grandin offers a new interpretation. His study of K'iche' Indian elites cuts across rigid class and ethnic boundaries; it links local and national histories, uncovers both Ladino and Indian forms of nationalism, and helps explain the power structure that ultimately sparked war in Guatemala in the 1950s. The Blood of Guatemala is essential reading for Guatemalanists and Latin Americanists alike.